Monday

Jul 1, 2013 at 10:29 PM

After the Great Fire of 1901, a new City Hall was built by a New York City architect who would eventually become Jacksonville's city architect. It had a copper dome. It was the pride of the city. It was a neoclassical style, new for its time. Then it was demolished so a new building could take its place in 1965, the modernist Haydon Burns Library.

But things don't change. Fifty years later, the Haydon Burns Library was too small, too outdated, and Jacksonville built a new library, one that was stylish. But the building's architect and others fought to make sure the Haydon Burns Library wasn't replaced with condominiums.

It was sold to a local developer, the Cesery Companies in 2007. Cesery Companies hoped to turn it into a wine bar, a grocery store and office space. The economic collapse turned the company's goals into an annoyance, one that may have ended two weeks ago.

The Jessie Ball duPont Fund bought the 122,000-square-foot building for $2.2 million, and already the foundation has nonprofit groups asking to rent twice the space that's available.

When Taylor Hardwick designed the Haydon Burns Library, people called him wild. He intended for the building, with its colorful brick murals and its massive windows and its famous (or infamous, depending on who you ask) fins, to make people curious, to maybe wander inside to see what it was all about.

"Just building a shelter is not enough," Hardwick said from his Ponte Vedra home. "You have to create for the people who have to use it and work there and live there. You have to give them an environment that's stimulating, inviting. For the library, people have to take books out and bring books there. It's a pleasant place. It's not a classical building, an overbearing building with columns and steps and quiet lamps to read."

He hired an artist to construct brick murals from 10,000 glazed bricks around the four walls of the elevator tower. He and the artist visited seven brick yards to find the right colors.

He built 88 fins, like the 88 keys on a standard piano, along the building's exterior. The fins cast shadows and trap the wind to keep the building cool "like a permanent fan," he said.

He built glass windows all around the ground floor so pedestrians could see inside.

"It will never be a library again," architectural historian Wayne Wood said. "A building with that openness for gathering and that artistry will allow a lot of people to come in and enjoy the building."

The size, the location and the idea that it was designed as a gathering place were all reasons Sherry Magill, president of the duPont Fund, likes the building.

The nonprofit plans on spending about $20 million in renovations, and the building should be open and occupied by late 2014 or early 2015, Magill said.

"It's an investment in downtown Jacksonville," she said.

They plan on adding a green roof with a garden and potentially an area to throw a Frisbee disc or play croquet to the third floor roof, and they plan on converting the rest of the roof so that it absorbs less sunlight, saving energy.

They'll turn the children's puppet theater to a conference room.

They might turn the basement to a training center.

They might move the historic stairwell.

Magill hopes the building will host the Art Walk again. Bill Cesery, of the Cesery Companies, had hosted Art Walk events in the building until the fire marshal told him his building wasn't up to code.

The Jessie Ball duPont Fund will take up less than 10 percent of the building's space. The rest will be rented out to other nonprofits, retail services like a coffee shop or converted to public space.

Nonprofits will be able to rent office space, Magill said, for less than the market value.

"This building should be a great magnet for nonprofits," she said.

Cesery said it will attract people downtown and help surrounding businesses.

"It's a great use for that building," Cesery said after the sale went through. "I think you'll see there's been movement downtown."

Hardwick said he's just glad his building will be used again.

"A huge weight is lifted off my shoulders," Hardwick said. "If you do a building like that, any building, it's part of my life forever."

andrew.pantazi@jacksonville.com, (904) 359-4310

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